10 Must Read Books For Lifestyle Designers

The whole concept of lifestyle design intrigues me because it means a different thing for each person.

For those of you confused:

Lifestyle Design is the design of one’s ideal lifestyle, especially an unconventional one, providing good opportunities for personal growth, leisure and adventure. Detailed methods include: career planning, entrepreneurship and travel. (thank you Wikipedia)

Made famous thanks to Tim Ferriss and his NYT best seller, The Four Hour Workweek, I wanted to create a resource for people interested in learning more about lifestyle design and the different aspects of it. Instead of writing the book myself, I have compiled a list of great books that are listed due to peer recommendations, being in my personal library and a big of digging around the internet.

So without any further time wasting, here are 10 Great Books For Lifestyle Designers

1. The Four Hour Work Week

   
   The The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss is basically what made ‘lifestyle design’ and geoarbitrage popular over recent years.

   “Tim Ferriss’s book is about gaining the courage to streamline your life… But even more than that, it challenges the reader to seriously consider an essential–yet rarely asked–question:  What do you really want from life?” —Rolf Potts, Author of Vagabonding and Travel Columnist for Yahoo! News

   Forget the old concept of retirement and the rest of the deferred-life plan–there is no need to wait and every reason not to, especially in unpredictable economic times. Whether your dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing high-end world travel, earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management, or just living more and working less, The 4-Hour Workweek is the blueprint.

   Great For MOTIVATION & GAMEPLAN

2. The Art Of Non-Conformity

   The underlying message of Guillebeau’s book The Art of Non-Conformity, based on his popular blog, is that “You don’t have to live your life the way other people expect you to.”

   Those who are open-minded, ready to challenge the status-quo, hard-working, and personally responsible can lead lives of rare authenticity through radical goal-setting, the author counsels, rewriting motivational standards in edgier prose: “The pathway to world domination, or whatever it is you want to do, begins with clearly understanding what you want to get out of life.”

   The Art of Non-Conformity comes highly recommended by a lot of lifestyle designers.

3. Crush It

   I hadn’t heard of Gary V before a friend recommended I get this book. The passion he has for what he shares is very evident in his writing and ensures that this book will inspire and motivate you.

   After taking over his father’s local liquor store, Shopper’s Discount Liquors, and building it from a $4 million business to a $50 million one, Gary V created the wine-tasting blog Wine Library TV and discovered the power of the Internet for driving sales. Crush It! shares his experience and step-by-step advice for using Twitter, Facebook, etc., and suggestions for monetizing an online persona, reiterating that the Internet makes it possible for anyone to make serious cash by turning what they love most into their personal brand.

4. The Six-Figure Second Income

   

You don’t have to quit your current job, or already have piles of money, or be 24 years old, or riding a booming economy, in order to start a successful online business.

The Six-Figure Second Income explains how to start or grow a business even when you think you have plenty of strikes against you.

In the course of building an eight-figure real estate information marketing business, David Lindahl and Jonathan Rozek tested dozens of tools and techniques. This book is centered around principles they derived from all the tests they ran, tools they used, and money they spent.

5. Vagabonding

   Vagabonding is about taking time off from your normal life—from six weeks to four months to two years—to discover and experience the world on your own terms. Veteran shoestring traveler Rolf Potts shows how anyone armed with an independent spirit can achieve the dream of extended overseas travel. Potts gives the necessary information on:

   • financing your travel time
   • determining your destination
   • handling travel adversity
   • re-assimilating back into ordinary life

   Not just a plan of action, Vagabonding is an outlook on life that emphasizes creativity, discovery, and the growth of the spirit.

6. The 80/20 Principle

   Everyone has heard the theory that 80% of the result comes from 20% of the effort. This is called The 80/20 Principle or Parento’s Law and in this book Richard Koch traces Pareto’s insight through the past century (George K. Zipf, Joseph M. Juran, IBM and other computer firms) and adds a bit of chaos theory to make the 80/20 principle a way of life.

   Koch helps you to identify that 20 percent and shows you how you can get more out of your business, and life, for less.

   The 80/20 Principle is a great read if you are looking to learn more after Tim’s overview of the concept in The 4-Hour Workweek.

7. Delaying The Real World

   Congratulations – you’ve finished school. But if you’re not sure you’re ready to settle down into an office environment, Delaying the Real World is chock-full of creative ideas and practical information that will help you craft your own life-changing adventure:

   • Teach English in Thailand;
   • Build houses in a Mexican village;
   • Work on a cruise ship;
   • Lead excursions in the Grand Canyon;
   • Hike along the Pacific Trail;
   • Create (and fund) your own service project;
   • Travel around the globe on one affordable plane ticket; And much more!

8. How To Write And Sell Simple Information For Fun & Profit

   Packed with income-generating ideas about creating a variety of saleable written works, How to Write & Sell Simple Information for Fun and Profit includes information for researching and writing effective, instructional materials and calling upon a variety of publishing channels, including magazines, traditional book publishers, self-publishing, and the Internet.

   The mechanics behind becoming a successful writer and information packager are presented in this resource that explores how to write and sell simple information in multiple formats, allowing writers to turn specialized knowledge into money-making books and products.

9. Work The System

   Work the System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less will guide you in streamlining the interlaced systems that drive every aspect of your work–and your life.

   The first key to freedom and wealth is to stand ”outside and slightly elevated” from your business or job to see the sub-systems that compose it.

   Then the task is to, one by one, perfect each of these internal systems so that they work more efficiently.

10. ???? You Tell Me!

    Did I miss one of your favourite books?

    What is the one book that you would recommend to other people interested in lifestyle design? It can be to do with business, travel or the mindset.

    Leave a comment below with the book (or books) or your choice and let’s grow this ‘lifestyle design’ library!